The purpose of the African Women in Cinema Blog is to provide a space to discuss diverse topics relating to African women in cinema--filmmakers, actors, producers, and all film professionals. The blog is a public forum of the Centre for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema.

22 October 2012

Aïssata Ouarma, laureate for the best script at the Festival Ciné Droit Libre in 2010, for the documentary film Le Silence des autres (The Silence of Others) discusses her film and the troubling phenomenon on which it focuses: the outflow of young girls from the village who go to the city to be employed as domestic workers.

Aïssata, talk a bit about yourself and how you came to cinema.

I did a masters in Art, Management and Cultural Administration with a focus on Dramatic Art at the University of Ouagadougou. Throughout my undergraduate studies I was very interested in documentary scriptwriting but did not have any idea of how to go about it. I sought out a film school, but to my dismay I found out that I could not attend because it was beyond my means. I frequented film students and read their scripts to have a notion of scriptwriting. In 2009, for the first time I was able to participate in a one-week training workshop in scriptwriting at the French Institute. The same year, I entered my project entitled “Between a rock and a hard place” in the Festival ciné droit libre’s best documentary film competition under the theme Human Rights and Freedom of Expression. My project, which focuses on the consequences of divorce on children (which I had a particular interest regarding my own family), was among the first three in the competition, but it did not win the first prize. In 2010 I returned with the script for Le Silences des autres, which deals with the experiences of young girls from my region who go to the capital to be employed as domestic workers. This time I obtained the first prize.

How did you become interested in the theme about maids from the countryside who go to the city to find work?

The interest came about from my concern regarding another problem, the lack of water in my village. In 2006, I sent an inquiry about the possibility of a Flemish collaboration for a water pump in my village and in 2007 it was granted. Unfortunately, the representative in Burkina who handled the project did a poor job. While the pump does exist, it is mere décor in the village, as not one drop of water comes out of it. So I started writing a script about the water problem but while researching for locations I realised that there was a much more serious problem: the outflow of young girls towards the capital. Therefore, I decided to focus on this issue and wrote a script about this flight and exploitation of girls at the same time evoking the water problem at the start of the film. In my village there are practically no nine-year-old girls, they have all gone to the capital to work as maids.

The film was awarded a prize at the Festival Ciné Droit Libre in 2010, in what context does the film represent the defence for human rights?

The film defends human rights in the sense that the childhood of these young girls is sacrificed with the complicity of their own parents. They are first exploited in the village by an intermediary who receives 10, even 14 percent of each sum paid. At each police checkpoint, the sum is doubled, considering that the girls are minors. And when they arrive in the capital, since they do not have any identification, they are often exploited by those who lodge them as well as by their employer.

The Terre des Hommes Foundation also played an important role in the film and in its production. The film was screened in various locations, especially in Ouagadougou. What impact did it have in raising awareness about the plight of these young girls?

Before I submitted my project for the competition, I participated for ten months in meetings that the foundation organised for the girls and when I was awarded the first prize, the representatives of the foundation promised to contribute to the production of the film and they kept their promise. Having participated in the meetings allowed me to be able to film more easily as the girls had more confidence.

Today many people now know that these girls are protected by structures such as the NGO Terre des hommes. After my film, this same NGO made public service announcements (PSA) to raise awareness to fight against the exploitation and mistreatment of maids. My film, as well as these PSAs, are broadcast often on the national television.

Is a goal also to raise awareness among the villagers who have preconceived notions about the city?

The first objective of the film is to raise the consciousness of the parents who allow their girls to leave and who without doubt will never see them again, and to dissuade the girls against this future, which they hope will be better in the city.

I was touched by the sadness of the families who were waiting for news from the daughters, who, now in the city, appeared to be rather lost. I was also shocked to hear of the physical and psychological abuse to which the girls were subjected. And what troubled me the most was Sali Ouattra’s statement: “When a woman hires a girl, sometimes she sees her in another manner, as if an animal, as if the girl does not have the same blood as she, as if she is not a whole person.” It is quite unbelievable that a woman could behave in this manner towards another person, a young girl! This need for power could push one towards inhumane acts! I imagine that there were things that you discovered during your research which for various reasons were not included in the film…

There were a lot of things that I wanted to say but because of the 26-minute timeframe for the documentary, I could not. For example, the girls’ fear and anguish as they awaited their new employer. The majority of the employers discuss the girl’s salary in terms of her physical strength and as soon as the financial arrangement is made she is taken away; as if at a cattle market. Rarely do they find a welcoming family, often they are sent into a hell. And also most of the girls were interviewed with their employer present and were limited in their responses. I could not show the invocation of the divinities called to protect them before they left the village. If another producer shows interest in the film, I would like to make a feature-length version.

I have another project on sexual rape of minors and I am looking for a producer. I will also attend a scriptwriting workshop in Senegal in October on a project that I began during a first residency organised by Africadoc; twelve countries will participate. I have already assisted a French documentarist and I hope to work again with other filmmakers to get more experience. I am available to work with all who may be interested.

Éléonore Yaméogo’s film,Paris mon paradis, (Paris, my paradise)focuses also on the dreams of people to go elsewhere to improve their situation and that of their family. Do you see a connection between these two situations?

The flight from the rural sectors and immigration are two phenomena that in the end describe the same reality, because in the two cases those concerned depart from their villages or their countries leaving family and friends behind as they search for a better life, but very often their dream is transformed into an absolute nightmare.

Interview with Aïssata Ouarma and translation from French by Beti Ellerson, October 2012

11 October 2012

On December 19, 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170 to declare October 11 as the “International Day of the Girl Child”, to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world.

For its first observance, this year’s Day will focus on child marriage, which is a fundamental human rights violation and impacts all aspects of a girl’s life. Child marriage denies a girl of her childhood, disrupts her education, limits her opportunities, increases her risk to be a victim of violence and abuse, jeopardizes her health and therefore constitutes an obstacle to the achievement of nearly every Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and the development of healthy communities. (United Nations Declaration)

In the following days, the African Women in Cinema Blog will focus on films that highlight the experiences of girls in African societies.

08 October 2012

Asmara Beraki’s Anywhere Else, relates the disparate cultural experiences of a divorced Eritrean father who drives a taxi, his two U.S.-born teenagers and the newly-arrived European student who resides with the latter. Alternatively, the title invokes the multiple spaces of the filmmaker, American-Eritrean, studying and living in Prague.

Asmara,I was delighted to attend the sneak preview hosted by the Washington D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. In fact you were an Artist Fellowship Grant recipient for which the film was partially funded. Before talking about this latest film, let's discuss a bit of your trajectory. You have directed a few short films with very eclectic stories. Your background is similarly diverse having studied Africana Studies, Architecture and Filmmaking. Could you talk about these works and your choice of themes?

Filmmaking gives one an opportunity to explore and synthesize basic human themes of existence. What tools you use to express those themes vary from filmmaker to filmmaker. In my work it's true that I use architectural symbols or sometimes elements from Africa. In The Tour Guide a Modernist building, the Muller villa, is used to express aspects of a character's personality. In Little Pickpocket the boy sorts through broken plaster figurines of giraffes and elephants. Themes are subjects like jealousy or betrayal or desire and those give life to a story, not a certain location or a prop. A person from a certain place in a certain time is reality and filmmakers work with the real.

Anywhere Else, set in Washington D.C., where you grew up, is autobiographical, about your Eritrean father, who played himself in the film. You wrote and directed the film, why this theme and why did you choose to tell the story in this way?

Even if the basis of a story is autobiographical the process of making a script and a film destroys, re-conceptualizes, and re-temporalizes the experiences that I only see those characters as themselves. I wanted to tell my father's story, how I saw it in a particular moment, and I wanted to explore characters who feel displaced. It is a feeling that I will probably return to in future films. I am interested in floating people, and in uprootment: a sense of feeling acutely the accident of birth and place.

What was equally enjoyable was to have met your family after the screening and talk with them about their impressions! What role did they play in the film production? What were their reactions to the film?

Since the screening took place in my hometown a number of family and friends were present. Both friends and family pitched in enormously with the production contributing food, cars, locations, or holding a boom if needed. I am lucky to have all of them in my life and to have such support--they were only ever positive about the final result.

There was one change in the structure of the family, rather than two sisters, there was a brother and sister. Why this choice?

Two sisters would have been a different story. With a male I could explore a brother/sister dynamic and also a male body in space interacts differently with his surroundings than a female would. I think the character of Emmanuel energizes the film; his frustrations are always expressed physically.

The mother and her new husband appear at the very end of the film, having returned from their honeymoon. Their arrival, followed by a long abrupt cut to black, is indeed a rupture in the story as the father, brother and sister and European female student had formed a family of sorts. This absence of the mother is a metaphor for cultural estrangement as well, as the brother and sister and father appear to be struggling to find their place in U.S. mainstream culture. Some reflections?

When the mother and her new husband appear they seem almost alien—awkward and disconnected--but at the same time perhaps their appearance suggests that it is in fact the characters that we have been following that are the alienated ones.

In the credits you thank the filmmaking couple Shirikiana Aina and Haile Gerima, whose daughter played the sister in the film. What role did they have in your evolution as a filmmaker?

Haile Gerima has shown me that to be a filmmaker you have to be tough but he has also shown me that you have to open your heart. He helped me to get the story out; we went through the situations together and he mentored the script closely. Through Sankofa [Video and Books], he and Shirikiana also contributed casting space, equipment, locations and supported Enanu acting in her first film role. On set she behaved like a pro and she's very natural in the part so I was really pleased.

In what ways does the film's theme reflect Eritrean and or Ethiopian experiences in the Diaspora?

In Washington D.C. the base of the city: the gas stations, the night shops, the parking lots, the taxis are largely run by people from Eritrea and Ethiopia. Not exclusively but noticeably so. That is the setting of the film. The story could be about any foreigner or divorced man; the character of the father could be from a different place and I can still imagine there would be a film. I am more able as a filmmaker to create the intimacy I desire if I use what I know best.

Your essay on African cinema under the title "Azanian filmaking: Creating an African present," which you wrote in 2000, provides insightful reflections on your process early into your career. You begin by saying: "Perhaps it is because I am young. I fear my own naïveté. My eyes are too big and I talk too much. Am too open with my ideas and my stories. At this point in my life, I am a traveller. And every new person I meet and new place I visit opens up new patterns of my future. New narratives I must act out. New selves I must create." You invoke Frantz Fanon, you talk about your positionality as an African, you talk about class and South Africa. Where are you now in relation to these thoughts?

At that time I was working on a documentary about wine and fruit farm workers in the Stellenbosch region. I did not really consider myself a filmmaker; I was playing with the idea but thought I would eventually take the path of an academic. I had just completed a whole course on Fanon at Brown [University] where anyone who's anyone flirts with being revolutionary. I still like to believe that to make a film you need an idea or a story and you need people and then money comes later. That sounds idealistic, but a meeting between people who want the same things can be powerful. I haven't read the article I wrote in years, but I think I was trying to express this: if you want to--do it, try.

You are doing your film studies in Prague (The Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts, Czech Republic) and currently live there with your family. What are some of the differences and similarities to your experiences in the United States?

In terms of film, Prague has given me a lot. At FAMU I've met great people that I can communicate and cooperate with and I've been able to concentrate on developing craft. I haven't been burdened there by U.S. identity politics. The younger generation is very cosmopolitan and open; the older generation is more noticeably marked by the communist past. It's a different society than the U.S., different traditions, different ways of interacting. I used to have culture shock there, and now when I step into JFK airport I look around and feel surprised.

01 October 2012

The Fidel 2012 will be held for four days, with a programme of 18 films (shorts and features) focusing on three topics of particular interest: Contemporary Algeria; Women Cineastes in the Arab World; and Reflections on Hybridity and Identity.

Two film previews: Aujourd'hui (Today) the third feature film by Alain Gomis will open the festival on Thursday 18 October, and Rengaine, the feature film of the up-and-coming filmmaker Rachid Djaïdani will close the festival on Sunday 21 October.

Two new works: La Moudjahida et le parachutiste (The Moudjahid and the Parachutist) by Mehdi Lallaoui, about the Algerian war; and Identité nationale (National Identity) by Valerie Osouf.

Programming of Algerian shorts, for the most part screened for the first time.

The Festival proposes as well a number of meetings and two roundtables: Women Cineastes from the Arab World, moderated by Florene Colombani; and Reflections on National Identity in collaboration with the revue Hommes and Migrations, in the presence of invited filmmakers and artists. An animated musical with the group Samskalejah and artists from Burkina Faso will close this edition.